The Taste of Chile

Its hard to believe i have already been here for 5 weeks!!! Living without Mum's cooking and all! So far my diet has been mostly carbs. Pasta is easy to cook and bread is extremely cheap! I have been branching out though and making soup so i have some variety.

I have also started eating avocado or Polta as its called which is also very cheap and used in almost everything.

I have refrained from adopting the Chilean way of cooking though which will save my waist as ALL Chileans love their salt, oil and sugar and when they can they use they all in enormous amounts. They begin cooking most meals with a very generous splash or oil, then with any ingredients they add a handful not a pinch of salt. Sugar is used on most things too. Most fruit is served with sugar to make it more appetising, you can pick up any street food with coatings of sugar as well.

Some Chileans also enjoy oranges with salt on top, and interesting combo they even have sweet lemons here which taste very strange. Cups of tea and Nescafe are also popular although they MUST come with a minimum of 5 heaped teaspoons of sugar. I headed to the corner store the other day and was offered a cup of coffee as it was raining. I don't drink coffee but had to as i had accepted without knowing due to my lack of Spanish. I received the cup of black coffee and tasted it and amazingly it didn't taste like coffee at all more like sugar syrup. He asked me if there was enough sugar and as my teeth were beginning to rot i replied Si, Si, Bien!